or if they take not with the stock, they die, and are never more to be recovered. They may stand in the stock a while, but are no part of the tree. So when souls are under a work of conviction, it is a critical time with them. Many a one have I known to miscarry then, and never recover again. They have indeed for a time stood like dead grafts in the stock, by an external profession, but never came to any thing; and as such dead grafts either fall off from the stock, or moulder away upon it, so do these, 1-John ii. 19.

4. The husbandman, when he has cut off grafts, or tender buds, makes all the speed he can to close them with the stock; the sooner this is done, the better; they get no good by remaining as they are. And truly it concerns the servants of the Lord, who are employed in this work of ingrafting souls into Christ, to make all the haste they can to bring the convicted sinner to close with Christ. As soon as ever the trembling jailor cried, What shall I do to be saved?" Paul and Silas immediately direct him to Christ. They do not say, It is too soon for thee to exercise faith on Christ, thou art not yet humbled enough; but "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

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5. The graft is intimately united, and closely conjoined with the stock; the conjunction is so close, that they become one tree. There is also a most close and intimate union betwixt Christ and the soul which believes in him. It is emphatically expressed by the apostle; "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.". The word imports the nearest, closest, and strictest union. Christ and the soul cleave together in a blessed oneness, so that as the graft is really in the stock, and the spirit or sap of the stock is really in the graft, so a believer is really, though mystically, in Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is really communicated to a believer, “I live," says Paul, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," Gal, ii. 20. "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him," 1 John iv. 16.

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6. Grafts are bound to the stock by bands; these keep it steady, else the wind would loose it out of the stock. The believing soul also is fastened to Christ by

bands, which will secure it from all danger of being loosed off from him any more. There are two bands of this

union the Spirit on God's part; this is the firm bond of union, without which we could never be made one with Christ-and faith on our part; "that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith," Eph. iii. 17. These hold strongly. 7. Though the stock be one and the same, yet all grafts do not thrive and florish alike in it; some outgrow the rest; and as for those that grow not so well as the others do, the fault is in them, and not in the stock. So it is with souls really united to Christ. All do not florish alike in him; the faith of some grows exceedingly; the things that are in others are ready to die; and such souls must charge the fault upon themselves. Christ. sends up living sap sufficient to make all that are in him. not only living, but fruitful, branches.

Reflections.-1. Is it so indeed betwixt Christ and my soul, as it is betwixt the ingrafted cyon and the stock? What honor and glory then has Christ conferred upon me, a poor unworthy creature! What! to be made one with him, to be a living branch of him, to be joined thus to the Lord! O what a preferment is this! It is but a little while since I was a wild and cursed plant, growing in the wilderness amongst them that shall shortly be cut down and faggoted up for hell; for me to be taken from amongst them, and planted into Christ! O my soul, fall down before the feet of free grace, that moved so freely. towards so vile a creature! The dignities and honors of the kings and nobles of the earth are nothing to mine. Do I say, a greater honor is put on me, than is put upon the kings of the earth? I might have said, it is a greater honor than is put upon the angels of heaven; for to which of them said Christ, at any time, "Thou art bone my bone, and flesh of my flesh?" Behold what manner of love is this!

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2. Am I joined to the Lord as a mystical part or branch of him? How dear art thou then, O my soul, to the God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ! What! a branch of his dear Son! What can God withhold from one so ingrafted? "All is yours," saith my God, "for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."

3. Draw matter of instruction, as well as comfort, from this sweet observation. Seeing God has put all this honor upon thee, by this most intimate union with Christ, look to it, my soul, that thou live and walk as becomes a soul thus one with the Lord. Be thou tender over his glory. Does not that which strikes at the root, strike at the very life of the graft? And shall not that which strikes at the very glory of Christ, tenderly touch and affect thee? Yea, be thou tenderly affected with all the reproaches that fall upon him from abroad, but especially with those that redound to him from thine own unfruitfulness. O disgrace not the root that bears thee! Let it never be said, that any evil fruit is found upon a branch that lives and is fed by such a

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CHAPTER III.

On the Gathering in of Fruits in Autumn.

Observation. It is a pleasant sight in autumn to see the fruitful branches hanging full of clusters, which weigh the boughs to the ground. But these laden branches are soon eased of their burden. As soon as they are ripe, the husbandman ascends the tree, and shaking the limbs with all his might, causes a fruitful shower to fall like hail-stones upon the ground below. How few of all those multitudes that grow in the orchard escape this shaking! If you look upon the trees, you may possibly see here one and there another, two or three upon the utmost branches, but nothing in comparison with the vast number that are shaken down.

Application. These small remains of fruit, which left upon the tree, do well resemble that small number of God's elect in the world, which free-grace hath reserved out of the general ruin of mankind. Four things are shadowed forth to us by this similitude

1. In a fruitful autumn, you see the trees oppressed

and overladen with the weight of their own fruits before the shaking time comes, and then they are eased of their burden. Thus the whole creation groans under the weight of the sins of those who inhabit it. The inhabitants of the world load and burden it, as the limbs of a tree are burdened, and sometimes broken, with the weight of their own fruit.

2. You may observe in your orchards what an abundance of fruits daily fall, either by storms or of their own accord; but when the shaking time comes then the ground is covered all over with fruit. Thus it is with the world, that mystical tree, with respect to men who inhabit it. There is not a year, a day, or an hour, in which some drop not, as it were, of their own accord, by a natural death; and sometimes wars and epidemical diseases blow down thousands together into their graves; these are as high winds in a fruitful orchard: but when the shaking time, the autumn of the world, comes, then all its inhabitants shall be shaken down together, either by death, or a translation equivalent to it.

3. Those fruits which are preserved on the tree, are but a handful in comparison with those that are shaken off. And thus small is the remnant that God has reserved for glory.

I look upon the world as a great tree; consisting of four large limbs or branches. The branch or division of it on which we grow, has doubtless a greater number of God's people on it than the other three; and yet when I look with a serious and considering eye upon this fruit, ful European branch, and see how much rotten and withered fruit there is growing on it, I am ready to say, as Chrysostom did of his populous Antioch," Ah, how small a remnant has Jesus Christ among these vast num bers!" Many indeed are called, but how few are chosen! Alas! they are but as the gleanings when the vintage is done. It was a sad observation long since made upon the world, that, dividing it into thirty equal parts, no less than nineteen of them are found wholly overspread with idolatry and heathenish darkness; and of the eleven remaining parts, no less than six are Mahometans; so that there remain but five which profess the Christian

religion, and the far greater part of these remaining five are enveloped in popish darkness! Now, if from these we subtract all the grossly ignorant, openly profane, merely moral, and secretly hypocritical, judge then in yourselves, how small a portion of the world falls to Christ's share. Well might he say, "Narrow is the way

that leadeth unto life: and few there be that find it."

Reflections.-What then will be my lot, when that great shaking time shall come, who have followed the multitude and gone with the tide of the world? Even when I have been pressed to diligence in the matters of salvation, and told what a narrow way the way of life is, how have I put it off with this, If it be so, then wo to thousands! Ah foolish heart! thousands, and ten thousands shall be woful and miserable indeed to all eternity. Will it be any mitigation of my misery, that I shall have thousands of miserable companions with me in hell? Or will it be admitted for a good plea at the judgment-seat, Lord, I did as the generality of my neighbours in the world did: except it were here and there a precise person, I saw none who lived not as I lived. Ah foolish sinner! is it not better to go to heaven alone, than to hell with company? The worst courses have always the most imitators; and the road to destruction is thronged with passengers.

And how little better is my condition, who have often traced the wickedness of my own heart to the divine mercy! Thus has my heart pleaded against strictness and duty-God is a merciful God, and will not be so severe with the world as to condemn so many thousands as are in my condition. Deluded soul! if God had damned the whole race of Adam, he had done them no wrong; yea, there is more mercy in saving but one man, than there is of severity and rigor in damning all. How many drunkards and adulterers have lived and died with thy plea in their mouths, "God is a merciful God!" But yet his word expressly says, "Be not deceived; such shall not inherit the kingdom of God." God is indeed a God of infinite mercy; but he will never exercise his merey to the prejudice of his truth. O what rich grace is here, exclaims the Christian,

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